Debts
by magdalenrose
Summary: Christmas during OotP. Remus breaks his promise not to buy Sirius a gift. Angsty. Challenge for Felis.


**Debts**

**by Magdalen-Rose**

**Rating:** R

**Spoilers:** OotP

**Pairing:** SB/RL.

**Summary:** Christmas during OotP - Remus breaks his promise not to buy Sirius a gift. Angsty. Challenge for Felis.

* * *

"Sirius," Remus said, tapping the tips of his index fingers together in his lap. "There's a word for men who take other men's money and sleep with them."

"Rent boy is two words."

"You know what I mean."

Remus was tired of having this fight, tired of battling Sirius when he was upset and stroppy and sulking. As a teenager, he'd revelled in having a rich boy to take him places, to show him things, to escort him proudly to the opera or lavish him with extravagant presents. He'd been in awe of how Sirius could throw a few galleons across the bar and say, "what the hell – another round" for hours on end, the way going out with Sirius meant entry into the glittering and the gorgeous, the extravagant and the expensive, meant being treated well and being able to have the last word. Sirius was in a miraculous world where you could afford to have adventures, to go out and let things happen, to get carried away and not always have to be doing sums in your head all evening.

But now it was sickening and painful to watch – Sirius was trapped inside Grimmauld Place , his money was meaningless, and he kept throwing it at Remus as a way of pathetically trying to make up for being the way he was. For having screaming fights and dark spells, for snapping and sneering at anyone who tried to come near, for turning away from Remus in bed one night and savagely taking him the next, with a cold and faraway look in his eyes.

Remus always found him after the bad days, huddled in a chair in what used to be Andromeda's room, and Sirius always apologised. Always said, "I don't know what's happening to me, I can't stop remembering, and I don't want to be horrid to you, when you've been so wonderful – but it's like something takes me over," and then he wept, and it was horrid to watch, it was so wild and helpless and Remus knelt down and buried his face in Sirius' neck, felt Sirius' hair on his cheek, Sirius' tears melting into his skin, and then Sirius would send him a present, something expensive that he sent Molly to get from Diagon Alley.

And now Sirius was insisting on paying for all of Harry's present, which was over the top and expensive – a full set of _Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts_. Remus admitted the boy _needed_ it, but Sirius was getting the full-color boxed edition, signed by the author.

It was almost as though he were tempting fate, this reckless throwing around of money, as though ever since he was a teenager he'd been trying to see what he could get away with, and this was only the latest and most desperate incarnation of it.

"Let me pay for _a quarter_ of it. Just so I can make a contribution."

"_I have the money_."

* * *

But, Remus thought, as he reluctantly handed over a fistful of Sirius' galleons at Flourish and Botts, it made no difference. His arms were weighed down with Sirius' gifts, his pockets were close to empty, and he felt keenly the shabbiness of his appearance, his need for a haircut, the worry that constantly sat on his back while Sirius threw gold around and hated it. And he felt keenly the _necessity_ of not taking Sirius' money. It was the only way to hold his head up, to live with the drab secondhand robes and the scrimping and the longing hungry looks he cast over the "New Releases" shelves in the bookshop. The twin impulses – to recklessly give in to the beautiful leather-bound treasures and to not be constantly in debt to a man supposed to be his equal – waged constant war in his heart.

There had been galleons of his own in the fistful he gave to the clerk. He'd talked his lover around to letting him pay for half, as long as Remus agreed not to buy Sirius anything.

Reluctantly, he'd agreed, even though it meant he wouldn't have the joy of walking into the tailor's and carrying that black velvet jacket to the counter, counting out the coins he'd saved for it, having them wrap it up for him, and taking it secretly home under his arm, where it would wait deliciously and hidden in the back of his wardrobe.

He left the bookshop and walked slowly up Diagon Alley, away from Knockturn, with no particular destination in mind. There had been a light snow – you never got more than a light snow in London – and groups of children had cast colouring charms on parts of it, the only magic they were ever allowed to do on holidays. He looked at some of the pictures – this patch had swirls of red and blue in it, this patch had been coloured to resemble a stained glass window of a phoenix, and this one was more abstract, with blobs of colours at random intervals. A knee-high toddler was jumping around in it, laughing with delight as the colours changed around her. A young woman watched her and chatted to a shopkeeper leaning in the doorway. _All rules have exceptions_, Remus smiled, _and Christmas is the feast of misrule. _

At the end of the street, there was a small, dusty-windowed shop he'd never noticed before. It looked old, pre-fire even, and settled into its foundations, bent a little in the middle. The walls were thick, the front window small and crossed with wooden beams, a row of swords hanging behind it. There was a large windowsill, covered in silver goblets and leather journals, old photographs and paintings, jewelry, knives, dishes, boxes that could have been for jewelry or for the relics of saints, and baubles shaped like dancers, witches, foxes, and sprites.

The shop beyond was similarly cluttered, almost empty, except for a slender old man with a wispy beard sitting behind the counter and reading a book. Remus stepped carefully over the threshold – he had to duck to get through the doorway, and the old man hardly glanced up, though a set of tarnished silver bells jingled to announce his arrival. For several minutes, customer and shopkeeper happily ignored each other – Remus browsed contentedly, and the old man turned his pages.

To the ordinary observer, the object that made Remus catch his breath, that made his heart stand still for a moment and then race, that made him stand, stricken, was perfectly mundane. It was a dusty and unframed print of a boy kneeling on a chair at a window, half his face in shadow, half in moonlight. The wallpaper was covered in vines, and seemed to melt into the garden outside, where the black and white of the room slowly gave way to soft, delicate colours. A tree stood in the middle of a river, bursting with fruit and crowned with a delicate peaked circle of gold. Behind the tree was a mountain, on top of the mountain a gold-walled city, in the centre of the city something gorgeous and just beyond reach.

* * *

The transaction was almost silent; Remus handed over the sickles, the old man waved his wand over the till and it opened, the correct change leapt towards Remus' hand, he caught it out of the air and tipped it into his wallet. The only sounds were the rustling of the bag as the shopkeeper wrapped the picture, and Remus' short breaths.

For the moment, he wouldn't worry about telling Sirius, about the snarling and shouting that would inevitably occur, the pacing of a caged animal. He wouldn't worry about Molly's tight, disapproving face when he and Sirius quarrelled, about Harry's fits of blackness or Severus' odd silences. He would think only of the boy in the picture, the tree that gave life, the walled city that called to him. He would remember.

* * *

_Twilight, and Remus lies with his head in the crook of Sirius' arm, twisting a stray thread from the duvet around his finger. Sirius is quiet. He often is, afterwards – it's the only time he is really silent, the only time the blaze burns out and he is cool and soft and still. _

_He drifts in and out of sleep, one arm behind his head, the other flung lazily out to the side, Remus' hair tickling the inside of the elbow. _

_Remus is half-alert for the telltale sounds of his enemy's return, the turning of the lock and the slide of the door over well-polished floors. Mrs. Black doesn't travel by floo or portkey; it lacks dignity, however magical it may be. The motorcycle hovers obediently outside the window, ready to whisk both boys from privacy to safety at a moment's notice. _

_It is quietly exhilarating to have the house to themselves, among the ancient family artifacts and the endless series of empty rooms on which they are trespassing. Kreacher has long since gone to sulk in the attic, and night is falling outside with new stars. _

_Before, they have made love in the parlour, the garden, the grand staircase – this time, it was Sirius' room, secluded and darkened and home. Sirius stirs, twitches his arm under Remus' head, arches his stomach against Remus' hand. _

"_Arm's falling asleep," he murmurs, and hoists himself up on one elbow, running dazed fingertips over Remus' collarbone. In the dimming blue light, the well-burnished gold frame of the picture on the wall beside the bed glows softly. Sirius remembers it from his nursery, remembers pulling himself up to the side of his crib and screaming for his nanny in the blackened and empty room, remembers seeing the gold frame blurry beyond his tears, remembers gnawing on the wooden edge of the crib and letting the picture take him back to sleep. He remembers being six years old and watching through a crack in the door as his father slid his hand under the nanny's apron and laughed when she froze. Remembers pulling a pillow over his head to hide from the grunts his father made on his midnight visits to the girl's room, just off of Sirius', remembers watching through his eyelashes his father stumbling through his room and zipping up his trousers, his hair wild and his face full of reddened veins. _

_Sirius remembers Andromeda playing Princes and Dragons with him, remembers them sitting on the floor, crawling around among old tablecloths and cast-off jewelry, building kingdoms made out of the picture – "there's another world behind there," she said once when she was ten, "it's in the wall, but it takes you to another place that's bigger. And it's in colour," she added, folding up the edge of her mother's old opera shawl and tying it around her waist. _

_He remembers swaggering into Hogwarts, sneering at the little baby Gryffindors who'd brought soft toy owls or who sucked their thumbs at night, at one chubby blond boy who wet the bed one night and the whole dormitory could smell it. Sirius led the jeers. The memory makes him kiss Remus, fiercely, as if it can expunge the strange wild sadness from him. _

* * *

_They are sitting together on the threadbare old sofa in the Potters' living room; James' mother has brought them tea and fussed over them, the cat is prowling around and scratching the furniture, and James hasn't come back yet from a trip to Hampstead Heath with Arthur Weasley to watch the Muggles play their landbound and simplified version of Quidditch. _

"_So what now?" Remus asks, his slim, pale fingers curled around a white mug of tea with a small chip at the top. _

"_I can't go back there," Sirius says. He keeps repeating it, and his eyes don't move from where they stare at a green flower against the tan background of the rug. _

_He clutches his bag; a black leather satchel with gold clasps. It makes Remus think of a child with a blanket. _

_On the wall of Sirius' room at Grimmauld Place_ _, there is an oblong section of the wallpaper that is less sun-faded than the rest, and a picture hook hangs forlornly, lopsided. _

* * *

He doesn't give the picture to Sirius until after everyone has gone to bed. He knows there would be a scene, and he'd rather contain it to one room.

Sirius is lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, tossing a Bludger from one hand to the other.

"I thought it all went rather well, considering," Remus says. Sirius shrugs. "I wish we could have seen the kids, though," he adds. Sirius is still silent. There is a tautness to his forehead, to the dark eyebrows that are pulled together over his long, straight nose.

Remus sits on the side of the bed, his hand resting on Sirius' knee. _I cannot tell you that I love you, that I ache to see you trapped, that you are digging a deeper pit in your own mind than any demon could provide for you. I cannot command you to open your mind to me, to free yourself from this prison you have so cleverly devised. I cannot tell you that this war will end, that we will be victorious – and even if I could, I could not promise that the war in your soul will end with it. You have always been claimed by both light and darkness; the baby boy with the pale skin and the dark hair. I can only say that though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I am with you._

He reaches under the bed and silently hands the expertly wrapped present to Sirius; the dark-haired man's expression hardly changes, but Remus sees a twitch between the eyebrows, almost a flinching.

"I know I promised."

"You did."

"But I had to."

"Please." Sirius' voice is muffled; he hardly opens his mouth as he speaks. Remus places the gift in his hands, leaning over his body, helps him unwrap it, their hands sliding against each other, until Sirius' palm is spread over the picture, the black and white room with its curtains and its iron bedstand.

For a moment, they are still and silent. Remus is half-kneeling, half-lying, one hand reaching over Sirius' body, pulling the gold ribbon and red paper away. Sirius is on his back, the picture held listlessly in his left hand, falling against the rumpled pillows and the twisted bulky blankets of the unmade bed. His hair is matted from where it has been pressed against the mattress – Remus suddenly suspects that he has been crying.

He kisses Sirius slowly, pressing dry lips to the place where Sirius' jaw meets his throat, seeing up close the slightly damp line where the tear has run across Sirius' cheek and down into his hair, his neck. Sirius makes a little choking sound in the back of his throat, and Remus moves closer, pressing his body to Sirius' back as Sirius turns away from him, opening his mouth and sliding his tongue over Sirius' earlobe, taking the soft flesh between gentle teeth and tasting the salt that has been there.

Sirius has drawn his right hand up to his face, has run it through his hair and pushed his face into the sheets. Relentlessly, Remus kisses the back of his neck, the tight muscles between his shoulderblades, tasting the dry cotton of his shirt, the lingering salt of his sweat, the ingrained heat of his skin. He presses his open palms into the small of Sirius' back, and Sirius turns onto his stomach with a sigh that catches on his breath, his left arm still trapped beneath him, loosely holding the picture, with its boy gazing outwards at the garden and the tree crowned with gold and the distant city walls.

Hands under Sirius' shirt now, the smooth dry skin against Remus' palms, and Sirius' gasps are halfway to sobs, he shifts under Remus' arched body and falls onto his back, pulling Remus down to kiss him, settling the thin, pale body between his legs, his face hot and wet and with the creases of the sheets pressed into his cheek.

"I'm sorry …" Remus breathes into Sirius' mouth; Sirius mutely shakes his head and strokes the back of Remus' neck with his right hand – the left drops the picture and comes up to tangle in Remus' hair. The picture is unframed; it makes a soft, slippery noise as it falls, coming to rest leaning against the bed, with its blankets uneven and untucked, its dark wooden frame covered in dust.

Remus' hand slips between his hips and Sirius', stroking Sirius' erection through his trousers. One of Sirius' hands pulls down Remus' back, tugging at his shirt, coming to rest on the curve of his arse, driving him closer.

"Don't –"

And then they have turned again, still facing each other but now with Remus pressed against the pillows, and Sirius has two hands on Remus' head, his fingers spread over Remus' ears and in his hair. Remus has closed his eyes, but Sirius has his still open, gazing down at Remus, watching the movements of his eyes under those thin, veined lids.

It has been so long since they have been like this, so long since they have been anything but cautious and distant. It is strange, awkward, unpracticed. Remus twists open the buttons on his shirt and Sirius stares at his face for a moment before bending down to lick the hollow at the center of his collarbone, to run his tongue around Remus' navel, to graze Remus' nipples with his teeth. And then another pause, Sirius with his head bowed over Remus' concave stomach, long hair brushing Remus' skin and making him shiver, before he squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them again and bites his lip and pulls open the zipper of his trousers. He falls back down against Remus with a groan, fumbles left-handedly with Remus' zip, and pulls Remus' soft grey corduroy trousers down over his hips.

One hand runs down the outside of Remus' thigh, the other is braced against the bed on its elbow, the hand cupping the back of Remus' head. Another still, silent moment, and Remus flickers his eyes up to Sirius', and then Sirius has pushed his hips forward and is sliding against the hollow of Remus' hip.

The thin, pale body shudders below him, and Remus wraps his arm around Sirius' back, elbow pressed into his shoulderblade, hand gripping his hair. He pulls at it, and Sirius gasps, and hisses, running his teeth along Remus' arched neck.

They are out of sync, and each moment is only itself – no long, lingering caresses or deep kisses, but rather a hand briefly passing across a thigh, or a push of the hips eliciting a quick breaking gasp, or the glimpse of white teeth pressing into a kiss-reddened mouth. They come almost simultaneously, faces pressed against shoulders, hands wrapped in tangled hair. Sirius pushes Remus into the pillows and continues rocking their hips together long after the shuddering spasms have passed and their bodies are pliable and exhausted. His eyes are pressed closed, and his lips are parted, but no sound comes out except his breath.

* * *

Sirius is dead by the next Christmas. His things are packed into boxes and pushed into the attic, or sold off, so Harry won't have to look at them when he takes ownership of Grimmauld Place .

Remus is going through the nightstand in preparation for the boy's arrival, paging through old bank statements and dull biographies of Quidditch stars full of slick full-page photographs.

Under an old leather folder full of details about the maintenance and upkeep of the house, Remus finds the picture, still unframed. He sinks slowly to the floor, back against the bed, touching the paper where Sirius' hands have been.

He looks carefully at the black and white shifting into colour, the curve of the boy's back as he looks out the window, the far-off city. At the tree rooted in moving water. It is sunset outside, early London twilight on another Christmas, a Christmas without Sirius, in wartime. He turns the picture over, and is halfway to putting it back in the drawer when he notices the thin, spindly writing, the penmanship that was so at odds with Sirius' brash and extravagent manner.

Remus brings the picture closer in the darkening room, and squints at the words.

_There is another world behind there._

The messy brown head falls backwards against the blankets, dry-eyed and ravaged. Molly finds him an hour later, and tells him supper is ready.


End file.
